Devotion
by SteampunkLoki
Summary: Espio's double life goes deeper than one might think. His biggest secret defines him and the fate of the clan and kingdom. What's the tale of their past, their present and their future? ArchieSonic, close to canon if you squint.


_ArchieSonic based, as indicated, so a little reading into the series might need to be done (I recommend the mobius encyclopaedia site, it's a quick way to get the info you need. Hopefully I can do enough explaining though). All characters are based on very minor canon entities, and most of the events are summarised in canon. _

Someone pushed her to the front. If there was one thing chameleons could get into a fight about, it was who had to stand at the front. She couldn't remember a single incident with strange visitors where the unfortunate ended up getting hurt, but that didn't help her case. She did best she could to get the point across but twenty-three fingers were pressed to twenty-three lips.

Liza set her jaw and lay with her belly on the grass in a stony silence.

Nobody was there because they wanted to be. Pulling a short straw meant you were sent to the outskirts of the community to check on whatever the issue was, at least one person per household. There was always the possibility that the disturbance was just an outsider walking around off the beaten path but the reaction was always as if they were all about to die. She had the same fears the others had, but came across as calm because she didn't speak them out loud. In a moment of panic everyone seemed to forget that their whole lives were invisible to the eye of an outsider. Chameleons prided themselves on their ability to hide, but that didn't get in the way of their tendency for paranoia.

The underbrush shook as the scout crashed through it, returning at speed. She pitied the guy.

He waved his arms over his head in what little space the branches gave him, stumbling occasionally on roots. From this far away, she couldn't see if he was giving them the all clear or forecasting their doom. The later message was received by Mika, a usually steeled second son of the merchant family Guerrero, who rose to his feet with narrowed eyes.

"It's trouble." He murmured. In his hand was a tightly clenched rock. He had a good throw.

"Trouble?" someone else echoed.

He tensed. The position of voice of reason was stuck on anyone who looked like they had a clue, and he'd been mistaken for having one.

"Wouldn't we hear him screaming?" Liza mused, wincing slightly when all heads turned in her direction. She couldn't decide on which eyes to make contact with, so she dropped her gaze to the sodden floor and mumbled instead. She heard herself as a scared child. "If there was trouble..."

"It'd be obvious?" Mika offered, reluctantly drawing the attention back to him.

If she stood at her full height she'd be taller than him. He was probably younger. She would ask but it was considered rude, like a lot of things.

Morning mist was beginning to settle on the antsy chameleons, she didn't squint too hard at the scout for the sun was casting an acute reflection off each and every broad valley leaf. The tiny figure was much closer and considerably slower. Nothing was following him.

Liza stifled a yawn.

"It might be safe to go." She whispered. He tried to look a picture of confidence.

"I'll wait a little longer. You head back and calm everyone down."

A couple of voices raised themselves in protest but they quickly realised they'd rather head back in the safety of numbers than alone. What if their community was ransacked and they walked right into a trap?

Chameleon paranoia has never known any bounds.

She rose slowly, working out the stiffness her joints insisted on working themselves into, and backed up through her cloaked neighbours. Nobody spared more than a third glance.

From the favoured sentry spot it was downhill in every direction. The flat expanse of the valley had only that one hill, and then cliffs on all sides. Nobody wandered too far from the community to find out but Liza heard the only ways into the valley were to scale down the cliffs or come through the pass. The pass wasn't monitored. Nothing was, to be honest.

It took her ten minutes alternating between running and walking – with considerable more of the latter – to reach the first few scattered houses of the community. There wasn't a centre, or anywhere for people to meet. If you wanted to be social, you hoped to run into someone while out gathering food, or strike up a conversation when you were looking out for 'invaders'. She wondered how there came to be so many families and groups when their species were so uptight about pretty much everything. People moved out all the time and lived alone until they found someone with whom they could establish a new family unit. Living alone never lasted for long – nobody moved out without a potential partner in mind, and they didn't reach that age without being introduced to many candidates anyway. Strangely, the relationships worked. Chameleons chose to be solitary, but it seemed they couldn't imagine not having someone to stand by their solitary side.

It was the walkways which signalled the presence of any civilisation. They were wooden and mouldy, but solid. The ground around them was swampy in the winters and overgrown in the summer. In autumn, it was dry enough to not squelch as you strolled along the walkways but wet enough to leave your shoes reeking of swamp and uncomfortably damp for the rest of the day if you stepped in it.

She avoided this fate and kept her footing. It was easy. The walkways were the only visible construction in the entire valley. She could see everything as clear as day, sometimes she didn't even know she was looking at something which was supposed to be invisible. Although sometimes the invisibility extended beyond the first kind that their species had mastered, and that was when things got interesting. The first kind was a simple pigment change which everything they made was tailed to adapt to – but she couldn't explain the science behind that technology for her life. But whatever it's explanation; it was nothing compared to the second kind of invisibility.

As far as she knew, willing an aura of invisibility around their bodies with such care that even the sharpest-eyed chameleons had trouble seeing it was some sort of magic. That suited her just fine, she could see everyone anyway.

But staring would be rude.

Her parents were out when she returned. There were no siblings waiting for her, probably because she didn't have any. The Del Soto family was oddly small and oddly content with only a daughter. The general prediction was that Liza would go onto have an extra large family to make up for it. But how the shy, sheltered girl would ever achieve that was a mystery. She was too curious, too eager to want to go near other Mobians and too prone to accidental rudeness. Liza was strange.

"Is the welcome party for me?"

"If you came here weirdly, yeah."

"My arrival is better off staying quiet... but I suppose I did choose to fly in, and that had consequences."

Her visitor was perhaps the only chameleon who could appear suddenly and not scare her, not anymore. He scared everyone else even if they knew he was coming. They couldn't imagine chameleons coming from the mainland, and his mysterious nature put everyone in a bad mood.

Valdez was her most treasured friend.

She didn't see the harm in him. He was wise and kind, older than her father by only a few years but finding that age was giving him a far smoother ride. Why would she back off from someone who treated her with far more respect than her other elders? And such stories! He only gave her snippets of information but she pressed him and pressed him to hear more about the exotic lands he visited. She pried two names, Mercia and the Dragon Kingdom, from him (with care, of course) but after that he kept the details of the two lands secret. He never outright refused to give her information, he just dodged around her questions in such a manner that she didn't realise until the conversation was over.

"You... flew?" she cocked her head to one side. The tall man rested his weight on the wooden perimeter fence, casting subtle glances every which way but still appearing calm. Liza was the first person Valdez visited whenever he returned from whatever it was he did. The given reason was that somebody needed to know if he was around, in case something happened.

Rainbow Valley chameleons weren't exclusively paranoid, then.

"Of course, Liza, I have wings. Can you not see them?" he chuckled, but tried not to make her feel as if she was being mocked. "I took a private aircraft as far as the pass. I have never been one for flying, would you mind if I bothered you for a cup of tea?"

Her eyes brightened at the prospect of quizzing him on his latest adventures, and she stepped aside to let him pass. He didn't remove his coat or hat. She knew him too well to see it as an insult, the odd glimpse of cold metal concealed on the inner lining was enough to clue her in on how far Valdez was willing to go for self protection... but not from what.

Making tea wasn't one of Liza's talents, so he wasn't here for a little light refreshment. At best, she just heated the water and added pressed syrups until the bitterness yielded. Today she felt like leaving it bitter – they were running out of syrup.

She watched Valdez kneel from the kitchen. He looked uncomfortable whenever he sat as chameleons of the valley normally did, but never admitted it. All he ever said on the subject was that the mainlanders had different ways of doing things.

The leaves were left to boil for only a minute before her patience wore thin and she poured the watery drink into cups and returned to the small dining room. It was separated from the rest of the house by thin screens, very decorative, but the house itself was made of wood too dark to make it work.

"You have a considerable amount of free time on your hands, Liza?" he asked as she knelt and placed the cups on the table with an absent minded bow.

"What? What am I doing wrong?" she gave a wince, reconsidering her previous actions in her head.

"It was a question, not an observation." Valdez chuckled. When he caught Liza's gaze falling to her hands, he quickly moved on. "I may require your time."

She perked up.

"Is this something top-secret I can't even talk about?" she whispered.

"No."

"Do I need to pack?"

"No."

"So... we're not leaving the valley?"

"No."

"... or doing anything interesting at all?"

"Showing a nice young man around the valley isn't boring, is it?" he managed to keep a straight face after taking a sip from the cup.

Liza rested her weight on her elbows, which in turn rested on the table. Was he trying to set her up with someone? Nah, only her parents tried to do that.

"You brought someone back with you? Is he a secret agent? Are we all going to die?" she gasped, expressing a degree of horror he'd only seen on those mocking it. But given Liza's ability to turn a sneeze into a life threatening illness when in the right frame of mind, he didn't suppose she was pretending.

"He is a student of mine, Liza, not the bringer of your demise." He shook his head, smiling to himself. What would happen when he left the two of them alone? Worst case scenario was that she got so scared she ran away and his student wouldn't be able to properly integrate himself into their community. It wasn't the end of the world, but he sulked enough without having to worry about being the village exile.

"You're a teacher?" she blinked, once again forgetting all the right questions.

"I am a mentor of sorts."

"Sorts of what?"

He chuckled. She frowned.

"An exceptional sort, I expect you'll have a lot to learn from him."


End file.
